An Inauspicious Night
by Nancy Kaminski
Summary: It's Friday the Thirteenth, and a full moon. Is Nick superstitious, even a little bit?


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Full Moon Challenge: An Inauspicious Night  
by Nancy Kaminski  
(c) Friday, October 13, 2000  
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"So you're not superstitious?" Nick inquired as he made himself more  
comfortable on the corner of Natalie's desk. "This being Friday the  
thirteenth -- and a full moon to boot -- doesn't bother you? Not even  
a little bit?"  
  
"Well, look at it this way. My best friend is an eight hundred-year-  
old vampire and I work at night in a morgue cutting up dead bodies.  
What use would it be to be superstitious? I already live in a  
nightmare." She smiles sweetly at him.  
  
"Huh? You think I'm a nightmare?" Nick sounded hurt, although he had  
warned her frequently enough that that was precisely the case.  
  
She patted his leg. "No, I don't think you're a nightmare. Nightmares  
don't give people miniature pumpkins for their offices at Halloween."  
She balanced the little orange gourd on top of her computer monitor,  
smiling at the mental picture of Nick rummaging through a bin at a  
store somewhere looking for just the right one. "There. A little  
holiday cheer in an otherwise cold and forbidding workplace. Thank you  
-- it's beautiful. It even has a perfect stem, just like a big  
pumpkin." She pushed a dish towards him. "Want some candy corn?"  
  
Nick shuddered. "No, thank you. I hear that stuff is bad for your  
teeth. And they look like psychedelic fangs to me."  
  
Natalie picked up one of the sugary corn kernels and nibbled on it  
delicately. "You have to eat it one stripe at a time. It prolongs the  
enjoyment," she explained at Nick's puzzled look.  
  
He stood up. "Okay, I'll leave you and your food fetish alone  
together," he announced. "Gotta get back to work. We're expecting an  
active night. Whether or not you believe it, the full moon seems to  
bring out the worst in the less stable members of society. Add in the  
thirteenth and, well, I think we're going to have our hands full."  
  
As he reached the door, Nat called, "Wait, Nick -- do *you* believe  
in this superstition stuff?"  
  
He paused, one hand on the doorframe, and looked back. "It was a  
Friday and a full moon the night I was brought across," he said  
quietly. "Lacroix might argue the point, but I think that qualifies as  
bad luck, don't you?" And then he was gone.  
  
Natalie sat back in her chair, staring at the empty door and  
thoughtfully turned a kernel of candy corn over in her fingers. "Yeah,  
I guess you could say that," she whispered to the empty room.  
  
Just then the diener pushed a gurney into the room, and she stood up  
with a sigh. Time to get to work, she thought.  
  
But as she watched her assistant unzip the body bag and expertly  
transfer the body of an elderly man to her autopsy table, the thought  
entered her mind that Nick's unlucky Friday night so long ago was her  
own good fortune.  
  
Natalie grieved for Nick's centuries of anguish and unhappiness, but  
she also couldn't help thinking, selfishly perhaps, that she was  
incredibly fortunate to have met him in the first place. Her world had  
expanded immeasurably the night Nick -- the fabulous, mythical  
creature, the troubled, unhappy man -- had sat up on this very table.  
  
She wasn't about to send Lacroix a thank-you note -- she smiled  
briefly at the thought -- but if he hadn't done what he had done her  
life would be so much duller, so very, very ordinary. She glanced at  
the miniature pumpkin sitting so cheerily on her computer, and smiled.  
Life was never dull when dealing on a regular basis with vampires.  
Thanks, Nick, she thought, for being in my life. For bringing me silly  
little gifts. For being so special.  
  
She shook off the thoughts that were threatening to become maudlin.  
Her business right now was with the dead, not the undead.  
  
"What do we have?" she asked the diener, and immersed herself in the  
details of her latest customer's demise. It was time to think on the  
ordinary. But one small corner of her mind contemplated the meaning of  
Fridays, and full moons, and she smiled.  
  
  
Finis  
  
  
Note: A "diener" is what a pathologist's assistant is called. The  
diener performs many tasks related to autopsies, and often is  
responsible for removing organs for examination and for sewing up the  
body afterwards. The term comes from the German word for "servant."  
  
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Comments, criticisms, candy corn, and little pumpkins to:  
Nancy Kaminski  
nancykam@mediaone.net  
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